Lawmaker wants to change State Board of Education

Saying that the Illinois State Board of Education has been "too closely aligned with the governor's office," a state lawmaker has proposed changing the way board members are appointed.

Adriana Colindres

Saying that the Illinois State Board of Education has been "too closely aligned with the governor's office," a state lawmaker has proposed changing the way board members are appointed.

The governor no longer would have sole authority to name the board's nine members if House Bill 80 becomes law. Instead, a nominating panel would screen applicants for each board vacancy, settling on three finalists whose names would be sent to the governor. The governor would choose one of the three.

Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, is the main House sponsor of the legislation, which sailed through the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee on Thursday in a 20-0 vote. To become law, it would need approval in the full House and Senate and would have to be signed by the governor.

Lang said his proposal is meant to take the politics out of the process of appointing people to the state board. It also will ensure that board members are "aggressive advocates" for public school students, he added.

The seven-member nominating panel would consist of people selected by the governor, attorney general and secretary of state. Lang's bill requires the panel members to include two former school superintendents, two former state lawmakers with "significant experience and involvement" in the school funding process, a former elementary school teacher, a former high school teacher and one person who has worked with a nonprofit agency "committed to education advocacy."

Lang's bill is an updated version of a plan he pushed in 2008, when he and other lawmakers said then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich was exerting too much influence over the State Board of Education.

The 2008 bill, which passed in the House but never advanced in the Senate, immediately would have thrown out all nine current board members and created a nominating panel to choose 27 potential replacements. The governor would have selected nine new board members from that pool.

But Lang has revised the legislation so that current Board of Education members would be permitted to serve until their terms expire. Then, the nominating panel would choose potential replacements, with the governor having the last word.

Current board members could ask the nominating panel to recommend their re-appointment, Lang said.

State Board of Education spokesman Matt Vanover said Thursday that officials there haven't had a chance to analyze Lang's new proposal.

The relationship between the State Board of Education and the governor's office has been a recurring topic of discussion in state government.

In 2004, Blagojevich used his State of the State speech to blast the board, which he compared to an "old, Soviet-style bureaucracy." He proposed getting rid of the agency and replacing it with a Department of Education under his control, but he eventually dropped the idea. Lawmakers gave him the authority to immediately replace seven board members, and most of those people continue to serve.

Adriana Colindres can be reached at (217) 782-6292 or adriana.colindres@sj-r.com.